August 20, 2014

A Personal Postscript on This Year's Fringe


When I finished last Saturday’s post, I thought I was done with this year’s New York International Fringe Festival. But then I got an email from a friend inviting me to see a show directed by his daughter Anna Strasser. So yesterday I went to see Chemistry, a two-hander by Jacob Marx Rice about the relationship between a couple who meet cute while waiting outside a psychopharmacologist's office to get prescriptions for their meds. 

Jamie (Jonathan Hopkins) has been newly diagnosed with a manic-obsessive disorder.  Steph (Lauren LaRocca) is a longstanding depressive. They are, as Steph says, “A pair so perfect they named a disease after us.”

It wouldn’t be fair for me to review this show since I have a relationship with Strasser's dad but I can say that Chemistry has been so popular that the festival administrators added an extra performance this week (the final one scheduled for Friday is already sold out) and have selected the show for its Encore series of productions that have drawn the strongest word of mouth (click here to read what one reviewer said). 

And although it might be flirting a bit close with the conflict-of-interest line, I’m also going to say that if you can, you should make an effort to see it.

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